[.ca] Nordic Runes (ISBN 0892810939)

A good beginners book on rune reading:
The Author has established a niche for his trilogy on divination techniques from the ancient Celts, Norse, and western Europeans and he has kept within that niche with this book. It does not provide an elaborate discussion of the history of the runes and the different systems in use. He takes the Elder Futhark, using dagaz and othila as the twenty-third and twenty-fourth runes, respectively and provides the pronunciation guides, poetry, lore, and more needed to develop an understanding of each of the individual runes. I have a fair-sized collection of rune reading books but the spreads and casting techniques provided in "Nordic Runes" were new to me. Two problems: (1) reversed runes are not well explained initially, however, the Author clarifies them in the spreads and casting section; (2) the Author denies any significance to the aettir - i.e. he believes that their order does not have any hidden meaning. For folks new to rune work, the final chapter provides an overview of the major books and authors from the past 20 years. "Nordic Runes" is a good platform for further runic studies for folks drawn to this kind of work.